ABSTRACT
In this paper, which is part of a larger qualitative study, we contemplate how mixed race selves are recognised and recognise others. Through our interrogation of the dougla, a distinct Caribbean mixed race identity, the product of contact between peoples brought to the Caribbean to build plantation economies in colonial societies, particularly former freed African slave labour and newly imported Indian indentured labour, we assert that mixedness is a shared ontology, made recognisable by not only genotypical and phenotypical evidence, but by the distinct experience of occupying spaces of ambiguity, ambivalence and/or inbetweeness. We argue the ontological experience of inbetweeness and the act of recognising selves in others rests in the active management of selves invoked by this state of being, what we conceptualise as manoeuvrability. Manoeuvrability, which takes the consideration of shared experiences of mixedness beyond static states to the dynamic engagement with self and other, facilitates in its dynamism the plausible mutual recognition that we suggest allows for speaking across differences.
